Automated Parsing of Faculty Publication Data

Overview

Penn State University Libraries take on many responsibilities from ensuring that students are given the tools and information they need in order to succeed to tracking the tenure and projects of faculty members while they are working at Penn State. Our task was to provide research and aid in one of their core responsibilities. We were to help improve their current process of tracking tenure in faculty members through the processing of CVs so that faculty members’ tenure is tracked properly.

Objectives

Our team had two core objectives.
– The first was to look for ways to improve their current system of manually post-processing data using tools such as Excel
– The second objective our team was given was to research other software that could benefit our sponsor down the line.

Approach

– Shadow PSU Libraries to learn about their current process
– Learn how to carry out their process and brainstorm improvements
– Develop a script that can assist with some of their current issues
– Research public and private software that can be leveraged by PSU Libraries and integrated into their current systems
– Select two software to do an in depth analysis
– Compare and contrast the two software performances with the current systems along with each other

Outcomes

– Our team has developed a script that can be used as a guideline when integrating crucial time saving automatic changes to the current outputs of PSU Libraries systems. This was done strictly in Python because of its ability to function behind the scenes with Ruby on Rails.

– We have also spent a significant amount of time researching software that PSU Libraries can update their current systems with. A report has been supplied along with any contact information that we have found useful.